Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I'd like to be able to keep a Gunnery score for each playable vehicle in the SIM. A separate Gunnery score. Or at least have that option available to be turned on or off.1 master score,multiple. vechicle scores.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Not a dynamic campaign. Dynamic campaign is when you launch a big operation with set starting forces and defined objectives for all sides - and from then on nothing is certain, no scripted progression.

Steel Armor Blaze of War has just that, but it's not even the top example. Of course expecting something on par with Enemy Engaged, let alone Falcon 4 (which simulates conflict across several countries) to realistically happen in SB Pro is even less likely.

But for simulations, realism-grounded games - it's the best way to do it because you are presented with infinite number of various tactical tasks and not relying on pre-scripted missions which railroad you compared and inevitably run out.

Edited December 20, 2017 by kraze

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

But for simulations, realism-grounded games - it's the best way to do it because you are presented with infinite number of various tactical tasks and not relying on pre-scripted missions which railroad you compared and inevitably run out.

Well for simulations (you used the term) what you describe is what you don't want.

You want to see how Blue goes against a defined force in a defined situation.

There is no point in wanting to see how your Infantry heavy Combat Team goes doing a given task, when the software generates a totally random enemy force, with random weather on a random piece of terrain.

E.g. You want to simulate Goose Green and the sim puts your force in the jungle facing an asymmetric threat, a la Malayan Emergency or similar.

What you are after is a game and eSim is not in the business of making games.

Edited December 20, 2017 by Gibsonm

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Not a dynamic campaign. Dynamic campaign is when you launch a big operation with set starting forces and defined objectives for all sides - and from then on nothing is certain, no scripted progression.

Steel Armor Blaze of War has just that, but it's not even the top example. Of course expecting something on par with Enemy Engaged, let alone Falcon 4 (which simulates conflict across several countries) to realistically happen in SB Pro is even less likely.

But for simulations, realism-grounded games - it's the best way to do it because you are presented with infinite number of various tactical tasks and not relying on pre-scripted missions which railroad you compared and inevitably run out.

dynamic campaigns in my experience are never that great, unless the player just wants targets to shoot at arcade style without the planning. a truly dynamic campaign is usually just a mess, since the computer strategies tend not to be very coherent.

take enemy engaged- the campaigns may be 'dynamic' but they are little more than attrition warfare with no discernible strategy- the computer just throws units at each other and you have outcomes like single helicopters demolishing enemy fleets, shooting down jets and blowing up convoys in a single mission. furthermore, the actual organization of the forces follows no known doctrine that i can tell- units are organized in mixed platoons (for example, 2 tanks with 1 air defense unit and maybe an ifv and a supply truck of some sort), as a basic maneuver element, then gather at nodes like certain checkpoints and just sit around and don't do much else.

virtually all games which fit in the category of 'simulation' turn into medal of honor contests, the player is shooting up a whole corps level worth of equipment with a bunch of aircraft thrown in and maybe some airbases and two dozen other structures by the time the player reaches the retirement or something, and it's the usual progression of private to general in a career tree (or at least in some form of this). dynamic campaigns tend to really promote this idea, virtually every outting results in contact with the enemy guaranteed.

i see potential in steel beasts' campaign builder for much more nuanced and realistic behavior, such as missions where no contact happens at all because it can be made more random -which actually adds more tension in a mission than the dynamic campaigns which are very predictable in this regard.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

A dynamic campaign, some form of "rank progression" and a little backround story ...even if it would be shooting at random/stupid enemy, would go along way in giving "mass appeal" to steelbeasts as a game.

And the onyl way it affects our current style of playing negatively is, eating away coding time for other stuff.

Anyway, as its Ssnake livelyhood that depend on esims economic success and not ours, he is the only one here competend in making the decision if its worth it.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

once upon a time there was supposed to be a separate product line specifically for the gamer market, and i think most of us are aware of what happened as esim explained that development path would have interfered with its professional obligations.

i wouldn't be opposed to a dynamic campaign in principle, except in practice, i've never seen it done justice for the reasons i've explained- once the player becomes sufficiently acquainted with the game's methods, dynamic campaigns get dreadfully boring, repetitive and predictable. the one advantage they have is that they don't consume much of the player's time in planning, it's pretty much jump in and the computer handles all that.

you may be able to splice some media files and other nice things in to add theatre to the campaign and make it feel more alive, but the way they play out i've personally found them to be rather meh. no way around it, attrition battles are the way they work, in all of them, players are put in the role usually of turning the tide of the war all by himself, accounting for most of the reasons for victory or defeat. to be fair, any simulation has this possibility, but for the very reasons people complain about canned, scripted missions are their very advantage.

if someone say, took the time to build a campaign in steel beasts where one out of every five or six missions resulted in actual contact with enemy forces, the overall tension and feel is much different than in the dynamic campaigns where the player is a triple ace in every single mission- which always happens.

steel beasts may be scripted, but the upshot is there is much more variety which can happen with the scripts, whereas i've never found that to be the case with dynamic campaigns, but with everything, it's personal preference.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

A dynamic campaign, some form of "rank progression" and a little backround story ...even if it would be shooting at random/stupid enemy, would go along way in giving "mass appeal" to steelbeasts as a game.

And the onyl way it affects our current style of playing negatively is, eating away coding time for other stuff.

Anyway, as its Ssnake livelyhood that depend on esims economic success and not ours, he is the only one here competend in making the decision if its worth it.

+1

If you have spent X amount of hours to get a crewman or women lets not be sexist. LoL

To reach a competent level. plus they have been awarded some bling your less likely to send them on a suicide mission or leave them to Die on the battlefield. this was a feature I enjoyed immensely in the tank platoon series.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Marko

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I would, by a margin of INFINITY PERCENT, rather have you say "This is our best guess at the inner workings of the Merkava Mk2/Mk3 because it isn't public info yet" or "When humans play the Merkava Mk2/Mk3 they will use the M1/Leo1/M60 fire control" and have it as a partially playable vehicle than to NEVER see it...

At the end of the day, while I prefer to have everything accurate and perfect, if you come out and say "Look, it's like this because reasons and here they are" I think I can live with it if it means we have a "new" playable vehicle for scenarios...

To provide an alternative point of view, and maybe speak for others who do too, and not because I wish to start an argument in any way, but I would rather only have the most realistic possible additions to Steel Beasts, in line with eSim's current philosophy. If I'm crewing and fighting an IPM1, for example, I want it to be as close to its real capabilities as it can be in Steel Beasts' simulated environment, and its opposition, like the T-64B, too. If needed, I would rather create a proxy from the nearest equivalent vehicle that is patently not the intended vehicle, and wait for the real thing to turn up. I feel the approach you're advocating is more "game like", whereas I prefer as high-fidelity a simulation as possible. Sure I'd like more vehicles, but I want them to meet eSim's stringent standard for modelling and realism when they're introduced. Just my two cents worth in case eSim and others think there aren't those who have a different opinion.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

If you have spent X amount of hours to get a crewman or women lets not be sexist. LoL

To reach a competent level. plus they have been awarded some bling your less likely to send them on a suicide mission or leave them to Die on the battlefield. this was a feature I enjoyed immensely in the tank platoon series.

As I said, it COULD increase the appeal for gamers.

Given the choice between a game version or an improved SBproPE (sans game features)... I'd always choose the later

If you told me that either I could have one new vehicle with an awesome 3D model, 100% accurately modeled fire control, and a full 3D interior, some time in the next few years, OR, I could have three or four new vehicles with sight, periscope, and head-out views only, and fire control modeled as accurately as possible with some artistic liberty taken for areas that you don't know about, I am going with the second option.

How about another example?

Right now ProPE only models a 1980s era AT-3D Sagger missile that operates as a SACLOS system. I would absolutely, hands down, 100%, no questions asked, be F***ING THRILLED to open that dialog box and see the AT-3A, AT-3B, or AT-3C missile as an option, even if they still worked like a SACLOS missile, because it would be less wrong than using what we have NOW in a 1973 scenario.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I would rather only have the most realistic possible additions to Steel Beasts, in line with eSim's current philosophy. If I'm crewing and fighting an IPM1, for example, I want it to be as close to its real capabilities as it can be in Steel Beasts' simulated environment, and its opposition, like the T-64B, too. If needed, I would rather create a proxy from the nearest equivalent vehicle that is patently not the intended vehicle, and wait for the real thing to turn up. I feel the approach you're advocating is more "game like", whereas I prefer as high-fidelity a simulation as possible.

I would disagree on the "game like" comment.

To pull from some examples we already have...

Ssnake and his team have no idea whatsoever how much armor the M829A3, DM53, or BM42 actually penetrate. They don't have (or at least should NOT have) test results, they did not fire them into blocks of steel and measure the depth of penetration, etc.

What they do have, however, are some estimates, and a calculation that helps them come up with an estimate. A very close estimate, but still an estimate.

Is that "game like"? It's not as high-fidelity as possible, I know that for sure, because it is possible to conduct live fire testing of those rounds...Just not for people to model them in a game. So they made something up...

Now, they did NOT "make something up" in the game-like style of WOT where you can buy magical powerups to make your tanks go faster, or your crew work harder, or sprinkle gold fairy dust on your M5 Stuart to turn it into a Tiger-II killer, but they still sat down, crunched the numbers that they did have, said "we think this is pretty close", and put it in...

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

A dynamic campaign, some form of "rank progression" and a little backround story ...even if it would be shooting at random/stupid enemy, would go along way in giving "mass appeal" to steelbeasts as a game.

And the onyl way it affects our current style of playing negatively is, eating away coding time for other stuff.

Anyway, as its Ssnake livelyhood that depend on esims economic success and not ours, he is the only one here competend in making the decision if its worth it.

Well ... I can maybe kinda accommodate you halfway there Grenny: From 21. January 2018, and every two weeks then we will be doing a Campaign: lots of backstory and Non-generic scenarios. But due to a number of reasons, then I couldnt find a good solution for Rank progression. And I and others spent A LOT of time on it, hopefully it shows - but I will let others be the judge of that.

Maybe I will get more clever for next time?

I hope that at least partially lives up to what you are looking for.

As usual then its open for everyone

Edited December 22, 2017 by Nike-Ajax

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

If you told me that either I could have one new vehicle with an awesome 3D model, 100% accurately modeled fire control, and a full 3D interior, some time in the next few years, OR, I could have three or four new vehicles with sight, periscope, and head-out views only, and fire control modeled as accurately as possible with some artistic liberty taken for areas that you don't know about, I am going with the second option.

Note that this is a purely hypothetical question because I'm specifically not telling that. Such a choice usually doesn't present itself when we're making the project plan.

With respect to the requested MCLOS missiles, I'll think about that for a while. Originally I was a bit more ambitious, thinking of an actual model of manual guidance (and how that would translate to computer-controlled units), but I guess that your argument of overpowered missiles has some merit even IF the missiles would still be overpowered with respect to their accuracy.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

If you told me that either I could have one new vehicle with an awesome 3D model, 100% accurately modeled fire control, and a full 3D interior, some time in the next few years, OR, I could have three or four new vehicles with sight, periscope, and head-out views only, and fire control modeled as accurately as possible with some artistic liberty taken for areas that you don't know about, I am going with the second option.

How about another example?

Right now ProPE only models a 1980s era AT-3D Sagger missile that operates as a SACLOS system. I would absolutely, hands down, 100%, no questions asked, be F***ING THRILLED to open that dialog box and see the AT-3A, AT-3B, or AT-3C missile as an option, even if they still worked like a SACLOS missile, because it would be less wrong than using what we have NOW in a 1973 scenario.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Well for simulations (you used the term) what you describe is what you don't want.

You want to see how Blue goes against a defined force in a defined situation.

There is no point in wanting to see how your Infantry heavy Combat Team goes doing a given task, when the software generates a totally random enemy force, with random weather on a random piece of terrain.

E.g. You want to simulate Goose Green and the sim puts your force in the jungle facing an asymmetric threat, a la Malayan Emergency or similar.

What you are after is a game and eSim is not in the business of making games.

Ugh no. In the examples of dynamic campaigns I've described the starting OOB is set in stone and you never deal with a random force - you deal with what's there near your objective or along the way to it. You and/or the strategic layer AI go after the general strategic objective and your opponent does the same. So what you get is a battlefield that is about as predictable as a real one. As opposed to predefined one, which is of course a better thing for training (or not - depending on how you look at that verb about the survivability of initial plans).

Of course I wouldn't expect eSim Games to make anything close even to SABOW, let alone the glorious living battlefield that is Falcon 4 (which bankrupted its creator... a 100+ men team in 1998 making a flight sim). But wishing for something is wishing. Also eSim Games has 'games' in its name.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

dynamic campaigns in my experience are never that great, unless the player just wants targets to shoot at arcade style without the planning. a truly dynamic campaign is usually just a mess, since the computer strategies tend not to be very coherent.

Have you played Falcon 4 (or rather its most recent iteration - BMS)? It's quite something when you just completed your mission task then switch to your side's radio channel and hear reports about Su25 attacking your FLOT and you are like "gotta use up all the weapons" and go after them, setting a plan to also use that remaining bomb on your pylon smashing enemy troops on the ground. Only to get ambushed by MiG29 flight. And it's not random because you know that Su25 had a mission to assault your troops and MiG29 had a mission to escort them relying on ambush tactics (AMBUSHCAP) to add to a general picture of an enemy breaking through your line of defense and getting close to your cities. You get a strong feeling of being a cog in a giant machine that lives with or without you.

As for Enemy Engaged - sure, it is the war of attrition there. But it's because of the choice of a combat vehicle. Attritting enemies is about all the things you can do with a chopper. It's the same reason why any plane in DCS (which has no dynamic campaign) gets rather old fast because of their roles having you do exactly the same thing over and over again.

It's not only about it being a dynamic campaign but also about what you can do in it at any time.

Edited December 22, 2017 by kraze

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

generally though there is a problem with the concept of dynamic campaign, if it's truly dynamic, that it in itself would appear to imply that specific warfighting doctrines or capabilities are ignored in favor of giving the player an opponent that decides what it wants on the fly. thus campaigns against a syrian opponent feels pretty much the same against a russian opponent, notwithstanding terrain differences, but the logic always feels similar- it always feels like the same kind of situation albeit with different terrain.

i did play falcon 3 years ago, and to their credit, with one of the addons with the disputed japanse islands campaign, the developers worked in a clever conceit where the beginning of the campaign wasn't actually already at war, players had to maneuver around in disputed airpace and not shoot, because the rules of engagement disallowed the player escalating into actual combat. that was the sort of thing that was refreshingly different, but all in all, once the campaign got underway, it started feeling more or less the same as the others.

in reality though dynamic campaigns make heroes out of the player far more common than you would expect. aces tend to be rare in real life, but very common in computer simulations. even when i watch videos of steel beasts mp engagements- while they are fun to watch clearly indicate a lot of heroic behavior. of course the videos would probably be more boring without the heroics, but from a simulation standpoint, i take the line that less is more:

the reason why is that repeated exposure to the fighting, over time, it just gets more, well boring. if every mission is combat (as opposed to only some missions have contact with the enemy, some are uneventful patrols, and so on), your brain just gets desensitized to it- thus why any game gets boring like anything else.

and dynamic campaigns promote that- if you're not tank ace or fighter ace by the end of the campaign, there is something wrong with you, because the amount of exposure to combat conditions is rather overdone, likewise, you're likely to get shot down or blown up that much more, unless you're 'cheating', or playing on lesser difficulty levels or restarting missions after death and so forth. sure.

all in all though you've never see the variety of missions in dynamic campaigns as in ones that are cleverly scripted- say for example, not just attack an enemy force, but receive a random message during your attack to go and rescue (or kill) a high value target or something like this.